The Sphinx of Legacy
by Michael Doyle

In the mystery of the sphinx
Is the ancient mystery that links
To secret rooms of love and wisdom
It brings release like keys to the kingdom

Some are kept prisoner by this lure
While others believe this is the cure
In the end, it seems that we all die
The way to glory is just another long goodbye

In the mirror, we look into our face
If we're lucky, we've aged with grace
Visitors come and go, easy as a rhyme
Each of these is merely marking time

Rinse and repeat as we aim to cheat the Devil
Keeping plumb with the square, we keep it level
Until  we really cannot tell where we are
No matter how close to home; or if we've wandered far

Hope comes today and then again tomorrow
While with distant shivers, we face our sorrow
Shadows of our selves that we have once been
And yet mere echoes of what is meant as human beings

There is one secret we know still yet remains true
We each stay alive as long as the last person remembers you
Drifting along free flowing as coded memory
And in the end, this is the sphinx of lasting legacy

Death watches over us, gazing face to face
While we, like goldfish in a bowl, pray for grace
In the crumbs of dreams that aged all too well
There's room enough in that for yet another tale

When we push to the depths in the cores of our heads
More is the pity that some are better off dead
Despite how we try to be ever more the clever
None of us are meant to live on forever

We play the game all the way to the bone
Until we each are buried under tombstone
Though some would have fought to sit on throne
In the end, we leave as we arrived, each alone

Riding hard into the flames of the last sunset
To meet who it is that we have not yet met
Unscathed as it were without a single lasting regret
We lived to play with fire and we will each burn yet

(c) April 5, 2022  Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved